Cato Institute Launches New Center to Challenge Federal Reserve

Washington D.C.-based think tank the Cato Institute has announced plans to open a new “Center for Monetary and Fiscal Alternatives” to provide alternative views and options to challenge the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies, the institute announced earlier today.

Last year, another Washington think tank, the Brookings Institution also established its own Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, with former Fed chair Ben Bernanke as one of the “fellows-in-residence”.

The Federal Reserve has been under much criticism in recent years for unconventional stimulus methods such as bank bailouts and junk bond-buying programs to spur an economic recovery that many criticize does not seem to be working.

The Center will employ some of the nation’s top economic minds with university professors, former Fed policy makers, and two Nobel laureates making up the braintrust of the organization.

George Selgin, the Center’s director and former economics professor from the University of Georgia said, “We should be exploring how to do better. We should be exploring alternatives that could do better, instead of dismissing that entire inquiry as something that should be only of interest to people on the fringe.”

So far, the Cato Institute has raised $9 million to finance the center, which currently has enough funding to operate for five years. The center plans to staff 10 full-time employees.